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Daniel Freytag

Posts by DanielFreytag:

If you love street art then you’ll have to visit the Howard Griffin Gallery in Shoreditch – The gallery is hosting a solo exhibition by prominent street muralist Phlegm – Like his other work the exhibition (called ‘The Bestiary’) provides a complete sense of magical escapism whilst juxtaposed in an everyday context. Thanks to Nick Towers for the shout and images.

This installation by Foster + Partners in Marseille’s Vieux Port is fascinating – designed to help regenerate the quaysides as a civic space the piece is super minimal whilst appearing to enlarge the area – it effectively acts as a magnet – who could resist stepping into this parallel universe.

Fellow FFF’r Greig Anderson and I met up with Larry and Dan at the Glasgow Press this morning. They are what you might call an endangered species. They practice the craft of Letterpress, surrounded by their beautifully antiquated Heidelberg presses. Each of these repetitively whoosh and groan as they go about their assigned tasks. These presses are the last of their kind. As Larry says ‘Once they’re gone they’re gone’. The same can be said of the knowledge and craftsmanship that is required to produce letterpress printing.

Having said this there is a fast growing demand for Letterpress and indeed other forms of the more ‘traditional’ printing techniques. (Glasgow Press’ full schedule is proof of this). The niche has become a point of differentiation. An emotive and nostalgic alternative to the digital norm. Something designers commission when they want to create a lasting impression. (pardon the pun)

We’d like to thank Dan and Larry for taking the time to show us around their print studio. It was great to get out of our sterile studio environment and see design in action, at the coal-face so to speak. You can view more of the beautiful work Glasgow Press’ produce on their website www.glasgowpress.co.uk More images on our Flickr stream.

Every now and then you discover something that really stands out – the work of Sonnenzimmer really does – the Chicago based studio of Nick Butcher and Nadine Nakanishi merges backgrounds in typography, printmaking, graphic design and fine art to produce beautifully crafted posters, books, and music packaging for a wide array of clients. They also sell prints at very reasonable prices – find it all here: sonnenzimmer.com

It always struck me that a good indicator of the general public’s awareness and appreciation of design could be judged by product packaging on supermarket shelves. Perhaps an unexpected source of good graphic design – the Sainsbury Supermarket’s in-house design team (which launched in 1963) took design very seriously during the 60’s and 70’s. They produced some truly fantastic packaging solutions for everyday products using bold geometric shape and colour. Here are a few examples but you can see more at the Museum of London Docklands. There is also a book available – Own Label: Sainsbury ‘s Design Studio, 1962-1977, by Jonny Trunk by Fuel (found at the Guardian)

I found these prints by artist Bryan Nash Gill a while back. They’re amazingly detailed observations of natures complexity. Each is a relief prints of the actual trunk woodcuts. I find them strikingly beautiful. Take a moment to visit Gill’s site form more of his work including some beautiful sculptures.